Sam Bird admits that last weekend’s race in Long Beach was a “hard one to swallow” after the DS VirginRacing driver was fighting for victory with Lucas di Grassi before he made contact with the tyre wall.

“It’s a hard one to swallow knowing we could have scored 21 points and instead we only have 11. I was very comfortable in second place and was confident I could have pushed Lucas for the victory. But qualifying proved we are fast and that’s what I’m focusing on,” said Bird.

Bird was set to start from second position but was promoted to pole position when Antonio Felix da Costa was stripped of the position due to a tyre infringement, which saw the Team Aguri driver disqualified from the qualifying results and relegated to the back of the grid.

The Brit continued by saying: “…Obviously I’m very disappointed as I believe it was a driver error and for that I apologise to the team. It’s difficult knowing that the final result should have been a lot better today, but the engineering capabilities of this team are extremely strong, qualifying proved that.

Starting from pole position the expectation was of a podium finish at a bare minimum, and I would have delivered that if not for the error, but I’m pleased that I could still bring some points home for the team.”

After the incident which saw Bird hit the tyre barrier at Turn 5, he rejoined the pack behind Bruno Senna in the Mahindra Racing Formula E car, applying large amounts of pressure in order to try and overtake the Brazilian for position. In the end Senna had the edge of Bird and so the DS Virgin Racing driver had to settle for sixth position ahead of both the Dragon Racing cars, bringing home 8 points for the team.